Historical Overview Section

Pictish recorded history really only begins in the Dark Ages, and even then they wrestled for power with various other groups for control over Northern Britain such as the Gaels of DÃ¡l Riata (a Later Scots-Irish Gaelic kingdom on the western seaboard of Scotland with some territory on the northern coasts of Ireland). The Picts were also probably subjects of the powerful Middle Anglo Saxon kingdom of Northumbria until the reign of Bridei map Beli, when the Northumbrians suffered a defeat at the battle of Dunnichen which halted their expansion northwards. The Northumbrians continued to dominate southern Scotland for the remainder of the Pictish period.

By the reign of Ã“engus mac Fergusa (729â€“761) the region of DÃ¡l Riata was subject to Pictish kings and a later Pictish king, CaustantÃ­n mac Fergusa (793â€“820), placed his son Domnall on the throne of DÃ¡l Riata (811â€“835), but Pictish attempts to achieve a similar dominance over the Later Scots-Irish of Alt Clut (Dumbarton) were not successful.

The arrival of the Vikings brought great changes in Britain and Ireland, no less in Scotland than elsewhere. The kingdom of DÃ¡l Riata was destroyed, certainly by the middle of the 9th century when Ketil Flatnose is said to have founded the Kingdom of the Isles. Middle Anglo Saxon Northumbria too succumbed to the Vikings, who founded the Kingdom of York, and the kingdom of Strathclyde was also greatly affected. The king of Fortriu EÃ³gan mac Ã“engusa, the king of DÃ¡l Riata Ãed mac Boanta, and many more, were killed in a major battle against the Vikings in 839. The rise of Kenneth MacAlpin? in the 840s in the aftermath of this disaster brought to power the family who would preside over the last days of the Pictish kingdom and found the new Early Scots kingdom of Alba in addition to a highly successful road tarmac-ing and civil engineering business, although Kenneth himself was never other than king of the Picts.

Using the army in FoG

Massed medium foot spearmen - take an IC to protect from shooting and to help in combat, as much rear support as you can get, and cross your fingers.

This probably means taking the cavalry as Cv not LH. 16 LH with javelins is useless anyway.

Getting the first move is quite useful, so maybe try less than 12 Cv plus the IC. Then launch yourself across the table asap.

10's of foot are quite rare - but they are difficult to support with cavalry as you will need either 6 or 2 4's to be effective

Allies

Scots-Irish, Later Any Wolves from the Sea 11 Lots of unarmoured MF with javelins and swords?

Painting and Collecting the Army

Paint schemes, insignia, shield designs? Put it here.

15mm Manufacturers supplying figures for this army

Most companies have some type of Dark Ages troops - see the listing on the Later Scots-Irish page as an example. This list is therefore restricted to those with named Pictish or Scots ranges.
You can see some of the figures in the Ancients Photo Gallery also on this site

The graphical theme on this wiki is a clumsily tweaked version of the very nice Faulkner theme from Demus Design. The good bits come from them, anything iffy comes from madaxeman.com

Some of the material on this site comes from Wikipedia. It is reproduced in both edited and unedited forms under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

Any content contributed to this site is also provided under the terms of this same license, and by providing content you are both agreeing to these terms and confirming that any content you provide is not covered by any other copyright or restriction. If you are an author or owner of content which you believe is being reproduced on this site without authorisation or in breach of existing copyright please contact the webmaster. As this site is open for public editing, www.madaxeman.com takes no responsibility for the accuracy of content herein.